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Mission Statement: This project is about a worldwide group of people,women and men, Jewish and non-Jewish, using the Internet to come together and share our love of needlework to" commemorate and honor those people who were part of the atrocities (survivors as well as victims) of the Holocaust as well as those people who risked their lives to save other lives in that period of history." We were brought together by the warmth, vision and enthusiasm of "Rita Needle", the late Rita Lenkin Hawkins, who sadly did not live to see the project completed. She inspired all to initiate and pursue this project, even though it was initially presented as "impossible". It is our intention to complete this project as our tribute to this remarkable woman.

		Dedication:     These projects are dedicated to the memory of the six million jewish victims of the Holocaust, the survivors,those who saved lives at the risk of their own and this project's originator, Rita Lenkin Hawkins, the one and only "Rita Needle". (L'Chaim,to life!)     When Rita died, many of us experienced a new kind of grief. Even though many of us never met, spoke with or saw Rita, we felt a terrible emptiness upon learning of her untimely death. All of us wanted to complete this project even more, for now we were remembering the six million and the one and only "Rita Needle".

Project History:     In 1998, in her newsletter"Bits and pieces","Rita Needle", Rita Lenkin Hawkins, proposed a project book of all forms of needlework to comemorate the victims of the Holocaust and affirm life. She had been diagnosed with cancer and wanted a life-affirming project to help her fight her personal battle. Any interested person was asked to contribute. Eventually, 32 projects were completed and submitted, some with directions , some inspirational pieces without.Rita had hoped for enough projects to contain six million stitches.     As a search for a publisher began Rita lost her battle with cancer and died. Mary Tod took over as editor-in-chief. At Thanksgiving 2000, Mary e-mailed everyone with her intention to step down and asking for input from the contributors. The concensus was to continue, but there were many suggestions about how. The strongest point of agreement was still the book concept.     Rita's concept was for a book, a traveling exhibit of the projects and a possible permanent exhibit at The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., with all proceeds from the book donated to the museum. The book would contain a gallery of the projects with a statement by its creator and directions where appropriate. Her goal was a collection of projects containing six million stitches.     We are currently at approximately 1,067,000.     In 2001 Ed Frowine agreed to take over as Project Co-ordinator and continued to attempt to find a publisher. In 2003 and many rejections later he realized that the Internet was the only place big enough for this project and contacted the contributors for their permission to launch a Six Million Stitches site. The rest, as they say, is history. Ed Frowine, Project Co-ordinator/Website Manager

Contributors:  Altman, Rita Bellah, Mary Beth Brewer, Miryam Bruck-Cohen, Mirjam Burton, Crystal Carlson, Joanne Feirstein, Bev Ford, N. Amanda Frowine, Edward Furst, Hazel Keen, Elena Kooler, Donna Lindenstrauss Larsen,Ayelet Lipshutz, Rita Manson, Ellen Pallas, Connie Peskin-Kaufman, Marilyn Rosefsky, Flora Rucket, Barbara Samin, Amy Schneider, Roslyn Shuster, Fran Spector, Arlene Stanley, Lois Stone, Maura E. Taffel, Nancy Wasser, Barbara Yunkers, Madlain Zelcer, Carole

THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE INTENDED TO BE INSPIRATIONAL. BY THEIR NATURE IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DIRECTIONS. THESE ARE TEXTILE ART EXPRESSIONS.

Mirjam Bruc-Cohen Israel  Fabrics Remember Album- title page "Last spring (1999) I curated and participated in an Exhibition which I called, in Hebrew, "Bahdim Zokhrim" or "Fabrics Remember".

Fabrics Remember- page 3 Julia Klein   "Remembering them, not in a sad way, but as real living women who left us gifts of love and pleasure, made by hand and heart, which tell me so much more about them than those unknown faces on the photos bundled in the headscarf my mother hid in a closet."

Sophie Cohen-Kleermacker (1886-1980) Theseinstadt survivor Hospitality-detail   "Fiber has this almost humanlike sensitivity, it ages and shows the marks of the experiences it endured."   -to view other works by Mirjam Bruc-Cohen go to www.fibersiv.israel.net

Charles and Hazel Furst beaded wallhanging THREE TIMES CHAI by Hazel Furst C.1997     Since the flood in the time of Noah, the rainbow has been a symbol of life for all living creatures. When the Lord came to Abraham (then Abram) in a vision, the stars in the sky were a symbol of life for the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people. Finally, the Torah is the life of the Jewish people. “Chai” is the Hebrew word for “life”. Thus, the rainbow, the sky of stars, and the words of Torah are three times chai.     “Chai” is also the written symbol for the number eighteen in Hebrew. The Torah is a scroll of the first five books of the bible. While it is whole in itself, it is divided into portions, one or two of which are read each week in synagogue. The portions flow one into the other. When the last portion is read, we go back to the beginning, read the first portion, and start the cycle again. There are 54 Torah portions; 54 is also three times chai. The rainbow is invoked by the Lord three times in the story of Noah and the flood. By representing the rainbow with six colors and using each band of color three times, I could make eighteen bands of color. The Torah portions are in the rainbow and in rainbow colors because like the Torah, the rainbow is a continuum (of color) that we divide (into individual colors), that has a beginning (red) and an end (purple), and whose end contains its beginning. To symbolize this continuum, I have split the first band of the rainbow, making it the beginning and the end, and I have placed the Torah portions between rather than in the bands.     The lamed is the tallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In the picture, it reaches back to the color of the Torah portion above it. At the top of the picture, the lameds of the 37th portion reach up to and become stars. This work contains 108,990 beads that were sewn to the 23” by 26 ½” surface one at a time, a process that took two and a half years (excluding all Jewish Holy days).

		Kooler Design Studios, Inc. Barbara Baatz Hillman, designer Pomegranate cross stitch (see color chart in Directions 2)

Elna Mullaley Arizona,USA. Chamsah cross-stitch

		Marilyn Peskin-Kaufman  Georgia, USA Hands in prayer Knitted and embriodered afghan  The hands of Holocaust survivors were traced and embroidered in each square of the afghan.

Barbara Wasser New York (state), USA. Chuppah backdrop- various stitches Ringbearer's pillow- cross-stitch